Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe

447 Pages·2011·7.529 MB·English

by  Craig Koslofsky

Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-72106-6 - Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early
Modern Europe
Craig Koslofsky
Frontmatter
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EVENING’S EMPIRE
W hat does it mean to write a history of the night? Evening’s Empire is
a fascinating study of the myriad ways in which early modern people
understood, experienced, and transformed the night. Using diaries,
letters, and legal records together with representations of the night in
early modern religion, literature, and art, Craig Koslofsky opens up
an entirely new perspective on early modern Europe. He shows how
princes, courtiers, burghers, and common people “nocturnalized”
political expression, the public sphere, and the use of daily time. Fear
of the night was now mingled with improved opportunities for labor
and leisure: the modern night was beginning to assume its characteris-
tic shape. Evening’s Empire takes the evocative history of the night into
early modern politics, culture, and society, revealing its importance to
key themes from witchcraft, piety, and gender, to colonization, race, and
the Enlightenment.
craig koslofsky is Associate Professor in the Department of
History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His previous
publications include The Reformation of the Dead: Death and Ritual in
Early Modern Germany (2001).
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Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-72106-6 - Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early
Modern Europe
Craig Koslofsky
Frontmatter
More information

new studies in european history
Edited by
peter baldwin , U niversity of California, Los Angeles
christopher clark , U niversity of Cambridge
james b. collins , G eorgetown University
mia rodríguez-salgado , L ondon School of Economics
and Political Science
lyndal roper , University of Oxford
timothy snyder , Yale University
T he aim of this series in early modern and modern European history is to publish
outstanding works of research, addressed to important themes across a wide
geographical range, from southern and central Europe, to Scandinavia and Russia,
from the time of the Renaissance to the Second World War. As it develops, the series
will comprise focused works of wide contextual range and intellectual ambition.
A full list of titles published in the series can be found at :
www.cambridge.org/newstudiesineuropeanhistory
© in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-72106-6 - Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early
Modern Europe
Craig Koslofsky
Frontmatter
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EVENING’S EMPIRE
A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe
CRAIG KOSLOFSKY
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

© in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-72106-6 - Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early
Modern Europe
Craig Koslofsky
Frontmatter
More information
University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom
Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.
It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521721066
© Craig Koslofsky 2011
Th is publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2011
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Koslofsky, Craig.
Evening’s empire : a history of the night in early modern Europe / Craig Koslofsky.
p. cm. – (New studies in European history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-521-89643-6 (hardback)
1. Night. 2. Night–Social aspects–Europe. 3. Nightlife–Europe.
4. Europe–Social life and customs. 5. Europe–History–16th century.
6. Europe–History–17th century. I. Title. II. Series.
gt 3408.k 67 2011
304.2ʹ37094–dc22
2011008028
isbn 978-0-521-89643-6 Hardback
isbn 978-0-521-72106-6 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
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Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-72106-6 - Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early
Modern Europe
Craig Koslofsky
Frontmatter
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For Dana

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Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-72106-6 - Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early
Modern Europe
Craig Koslofsky
Frontmatter
More information
© in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-72106-6 - Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early
Modern Europe
Craig Koslofsky
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Contents
List of fi gures page ix
List of maps x iii
Acknowledgments xiv
1 An early modern revolution 1
1.1 An early modern revolution 2
1.2 Taking stock 5
2 Darkness and the Devil, 1450–1650 1 9
2.1 The “Wittenberg Nightingale” 19
2.2 Instruments of darkness 23
2.3 Witchcraft 28
3 Seeking the Lord in the night, 1530–1650 46
3.1 Discovering the night 46
3.2 Seeking the Lord in the night 47
3.3 Thinking with the night about God 73
3.4 A refuge in the night 88
4 Princes of darkness: the night at court, 1600–1750 9 1
4.1 Nocturnal spectacles and pleasures 93
4.2 Darkness and the perspective stage 103
4.3 The nocturnalization of daily life at court 110
4.4 Princes of darkness 118
5 “An entirely new contrivance”: the rise of street lighting,
1660–1700 128
5.1 Lighting the streets of early modern Europe 131
5.2 Policing the night: street lighting in Lille 140
5.3 Absolutism and street lighting in Leipzig 145
vii
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978-0-521-72106-6 - Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early
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Craig Koslofsky
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viii Contents
5.4 Resistance by local authorities 151
5.5 Spectacle, security, and sociability 155
6 Colonizing the urban night: resistance, gender,
and the public sphere 1 57
6.1 Hand grenades, horsewhips, and the civilizing process 159
6.2 Resistance 162
6.3 Gender and the public sphere 174
7 Colonizing the rural night? 198
7.1 Patterns 200
7.2 Colonizing the rural night? 218
7.3 Country folk, city nights: daily time diverges
in the eighteenth century 228
8 Darkness and Enlightenment 2 36
8.1 Ghosts 238
8.2 Witches 247
8.3 Hell 252
8.4 Darkness and Enlightenment 258
8.5 Darkness and race in the early Enlightenment 268
9 Conclusion 276
Notes 283
Bibliography 3 72
Index 4 24
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978-0-521-72106-6 - Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early
Modern Europe
Craig Koslofsky
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Figures
2.1 Woodcut showing a witches’ dance, from T he Witch of the
Woodlands; or the Cobler’s New Translation (early eighteenth
century). page 33
2.2 “Description et fi gure du sabbat des sorciers,” engraving
by Jan Ziarnko (1612). By permission of the Folger
Shakespeare Library. 42
3.1 Nicodemus by candlelight, ceiling panel in the Carmelite
convent of Himmelspforten, Würzburg, 1613. 50
3.2 Matthaeus Merian, “Meeting of Christ and Nicodemus
by Night” (1627). Photograph courtesy of the Newberry
Library. 51
3.3 Contemporary chronicle illustration of Moravian
missionaries preaching by candlelight in the forest outside
Zurich, 1574. Zentralbibliothek Zurich. 57
3.4 Light and darkness in Jacob Böhme’s thought. Engraving
from Böhme’s X L. questions concerning the soule (1647).
University of Chicago Library, Special Collections
Research Center. 67
3.5 Georges de La Tour, The Magdalene with the Smoking
Flame , c . 1638–40. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 78
3.6 Detail from the frontispiece of Daniel Cudmore,
A prayer-song (1655). University of Illinois.
Urbana-Champaign, Rare Book and Manuscript Library. 83
3.7 Lenses of day and night, from Hermann Löher, Hochnötige
Unterthanige Wemütige Klage der Frommen Unschültigen
ix
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Craig Koslofsky
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x List of fi gures
(1676). Jesuitenbibliothek of the St. Michael-Gymnasium,
Bad Münstereifel, Germany. 87
4.1 Louis XIV costumed as the sun in the Ballet de la Nuit , 1653.
Bibliothèque nationale de France. Photograph: Réunion des
Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY. 94
4.2 Print by Israel Silvestre of fi rework display, 1664.
© Trustees of the British Museum, 1889,1218.139. 98
4.3 Illuminated tourney in the Dresden Reithaus, 1695.
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden,
Kupferstich-Kabinett. Photograph courtesy
SLUB / Dept. Deutsche Fotothek, Herbert Ludwig. 101
4.4 Illumination of the Hôtel de Ville, Ghent, 1717.
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Bildarchiv, Vienna,
462.224-A/B. 102
4.5 Firework display in Bremen, 1668. Staatsarchiv Marburg,
Best. 4 f Bremen, Nr. 58. 103
4.6 Grisaille by Juste D’Egmont, “The ballet ‘La Prospérité
des Armes de la France’ at the Grand Théâtre du Palais
Cardinal,” c . 1641. Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, France.
Photograph: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY. 105
4.7 Satirical print by Jacob Gole depicting Louis XIV
as a hooded arsonist, 1691. © Trustees of the
British Museum, S.6693. 1 26
5.1 Oil-lamp, lantern, and post designed by Jan van der
Heyden, 1660s. Archives municipales de Lille, Aff aires
Générales 1256, dossier 9, fo. 122 ( c . 1700). 137
5.2 Print showing the rue Quinquempoix, Paris, 1720.
© Trustees of the British Museum, 1882,0812.461. 138
5.3 Leipzig street-lighting schedule, December 1702.
Stadtarchiv Leipzig. 139
5.4 Leipzig street-lighting scene, 1702, print from Aufgefangene
Brieff e (1701). 150
6.1 German students serenading, 1727, from Christian
Friedrich Henrici, Picanders Ernst-schertzhaff te und
satyrische Gedichte (1727). University of Illinois. Urbana-
Champaign, Rare Book and Manuscript Library. 167
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